JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day

Sunday, March 30, 2008

This pastry is fabulous, with a strong scent of olives - not in any way second best to butter pastry. It rolls out thin thin thin, and makes lovely pleated folds. Quicker than butter pastry, too.

I used it to make a rustic potato pie in a sort of Dick Whittington swag bag. The filling wasn't a huge hit, so I'm going to work on it before posting it. But the pastry ... well, here it is, another master recipe for cholesterol-watchers: it's free from saturated fat, although you couldn't truthfully describe it as low fat.

Use a stand mixer for this, if possible. Mix the flour, salt and olive oil. With the engine running, gradually add the water (I used about 100ml), until you have a ball of dough. Beat it for a couple of minutes until you have a silky ball. Put in the fridge. I used clingfilm, as instructed, but would prefer not to, so next time I'm going to put it in a storage box. This needs to rest for at least an hour.

The dough effortlessly rolls out very thin, and is easy to work. Brush with a little olive oil before cooking (190/30 minutes for my pie).

This classic Middle Eastern recipe was inspired by the cookery of Rose Prince in today's Sunday Telegraph.

Many years ago when Jane Asher was a columnist on the Daily Express a reader asked her for a recipe for Olive Oil pastry. Although Jane had never heard of this she invented one and published the result. As I am not a good pastry cook I was eager to try it and the result is wonderful, very light, short and easy to work with. Joanna's recipe sounds the same so I recommend that you all give it a go and share your comments.

Fascinating! I landed here because I was interested in checking if olive oil pastry was actually an accepted way of making pastry and what the recommended proportions were. I checked because I just made my dog some biscuits by throwing in about a pound of wholemeal flour, pouring in as much olive oil as 'looked right' and mixing with water to a fairly stiff dough. I added grated parmesan for interest, and cut cookies from it, then cooked them for twenty minutes, split them open and cooked them again. Result, crispy, fairly thin dog biscuits that he begged for! He's on an exclusion diet, and this week is the week we add wheat into the mix, so I needed very plain biscuits.

Now I'm going to try it for a pie, or pasties! Sounds good! And I'd have eaten your rustic potato pie - sounds good! :)

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About

We live in the countryside near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. This blog describes the food I make for our family: I'm not an expert, but I do cook from scratch every day. It's partly a health thing (less salt and sugar, better quality ingredients), partly because I prefer to buy food as locally as possible (great butcher nearby, a lovely Italian deli, I belong to a food co-op, a weekly vegetable box, flour from local mills). I try not to use supermarkets much, but don't always succeed. Each year, I grow a little more of our food, mainly herbs and tomatoes; I'm far too idle to grow maincrop potatoes, but this year we're growing salads and many more vegetables. We keep hens; I plan to keep bees, which would make me a third generation beekeeper. I bake all our own bread, although my children would prefer to be allowed to eat sliced white in peace.

From the start in 2005, I have written this blog mostly for myself: to help me keep track of recipes and links. I'm not saying what I do is best (or even better); I'm just writing down what I do. It gives me huge pleasure that my children use this blog when they want a recipe; I am also proud of the number of cyberfriends I have made (and met) over the years.

If you want to contact me, this is where to start: joannacary AT gmail DOT com

I'm happy to publish comments so long as I know who they are from. I have comment moderation for older posts, to block irritating spam which appears daily from Japan on a couple of posts. I will always delete anonymous comments, however flattering.